Well I did say a long time ago that I was going to do a little post about training off the range (at home indoors) but never got round to doing it so here we go.
With the British weather and just life in general I often find that I cannot spend as much time shooting as I would like and know from last year how badly that can affect my form, stamina and shooting in general. So I try to be good and do a little bit of training at home each evening when I get in from work, even if it is just ten or twenty reversals, using your bow or a stretchy band go through you shot cycle without an arrow knocked but DO NOT release, instead hold as if you are on the gold for 5-20 sec, roll your shoulder back and then come down slowly (I will talk about this in a little bit). It is very handy if you have a mirror that you can see your whole body in when doing reversals as you can check that you are keeping a good form and that you have a nice line from the bow hand all the way back to your string arm elbow. How long you hold for depends on what your are trying to achieve and how heavy the band/bow is, when I have time I will do maybe 10 sets of six with a medium band and hold for about 10 seconds each time with a 10 second rest in between each reversal and 20 seconds in between each set. I am not going for a cardio workout with this I am just reinforcing my draw cycle and each time I come up I am going through the same mental checklist as when I shoot.
If I want to look at my form I will use a light band so that it takes very little effort to hold full draw and I can take time to look and feel where my hands, shoulders and elbows are. Knowing exactly where your hands and shoulders etc are is a big part of having a good form but many archers struggle with it, I have seen people being coached and being told to anchor their string hand under their chin and they are insisting that it is when everybody watching can see it is along side their jaw. They are not lying, it really feels like their hand is under the jaw, this is because they have not learned how it feels when the hand is under the jaw, the same goes for the draw arm elbow, lots of archers have a high elbow but when told about it say no I can feel it is down (they mean it feels 'like' it is down). Standing in front of a mirror allows you to see exactly what you are doing and to 'feel' what you are doing.
To build strength and stamina I use a 'custom' training aid, I have a spare grip from an old bow with which I use a medium and a heavy stretch band so that it is like holding my bow I have then put a 2 kg dumbbell into the grip and used some tape to hold it in place. Now i have a training aid that I can use to build strength into the muscles that draw the bow and also the ones that hold the bow up. I don't do much other training as I am quite a keen cyclist and rely on that to maintain my core strength, but if I did not do that then I would need to be working on that.
One other thing that I think helps with my form and shot cycle is to mentally go through it during the corse of a normal day, just take twenty seconds a few times a day and go through your shot cycle in your head 'feeling' the shot as you do it. I think it is all to do with the fact that when you just think about moving your arm for example, your brain starts to send small signals to the muscles that you will use even before you have made a conscious effort to move it.
With the British weather and just life in general I often find that I cannot spend as much time shooting as I would like and know from last year how badly that can affect my form, stamina and shooting in general. So I try to be good and do a little bit of training at home each evening when I get in from work, even if it is just ten or twenty reversals, using your bow or a stretchy band go through you shot cycle without an arrow knocked but DO NOT release, instead hold as if you are on the gold for 5-20 sec, roll your shoulder back and then come down slowly (I will talk about this in a little bit). It is very handy if you have a mirror that you can see your whole body in when doing reversals as you can check that you are keeping a good form and that you have a nice line from the bow hand all the way back to your string arm elbow. How long you hold for depends on what your are trying to achieve and how heavy the band/bow is, when I have time I will do maybe 10 sets of six with a medium band and hold for about 10 seconds each time with a 10 second rest in between each reversal and 20 seconds in between each set. I am not going for a cardio workout with this I am just reinforcing my draw cycle and each time I come up I am going through the same mental checklist as when I shoot.
If I want to look at my form I will use a light band so that it takes very little effort to hold full draw and I can take time to look and feel where my hands, shoulders and elbows are. Knowing exactly where your hands and shoulders etc are is a big part of having a good form but many archers struggle with it, I have seen people being coached and being told to anchor their string hand under their chin and they are insisting that it is when everybody watching can see it is along side their jaw. They are not lying, it really feels like their hand is under the jaw, this is because they have not learned how it feels when the hand is under the jaw, the same goes for the draw arm elbow, lots of archers have a high elbow but when told about it say no I can feel it is down (they mean it feels 'like' it is down). Standing in front of a mirror allows you to see exactly what you are doing and to 'feel' what you are doing.
To build strength and stamina I use a 'custom' training aid, I have a spare grip from an old bow with which I use a medium and a heavy stretch band so that it is like holding my bow I have then put a 2 kg dumbbell into the grip and used some tape to hold it in place. Now i have a training aid that I can use to build strength into the muscles that draw the bow and also the ones that hold the bow up. I don't do much other training as I am quite a keen cyclist and rely on that to maintain my core strength, but if I did not do that then I would need to be working on that.
One other thing that I think helps with my form and shot cycle is to mentally go through it during the corse of a normal day, just take twenty seconds a few times a day and go through your shot cycle in your head 'feeling' the shot as you do it. I think it is all to do with the fact that when you just think about moving your arm for example, your brain starts to send small signals to the muscles that you will use even before you have made a conscious effort to move it.
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